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Lindsay Fischer, author and advocate, has given the world a guided tour of what someone in an abusive relationship lives with day and night, sometimes for years before they’re finally able to get away. Sadly, not everyone finds the strength to do so and never make it to happily ever after, if that’s even a thing for survivors. Lindsay survived and has come forward to tell about her relationship with Mike (from henceforth referred to as the worthless piece of shit [wpos for short]) from the day she met Prince Charming to the day she escaped the evil bastard who had turned her once happy life into a living hell.

Anything I say about The House on Sunset would pale in comparison to what awaits you between the covers so just do what that little voice right now in the back of your head is telling you to do and get yourself a copy of this brave woman’s story of survival, both during and after she left wpos and began the long, difficult process of rebuilding her life.

And she did. Somehow, even after all he’d done to her, she found a way to reclaim what had been violently ripped from her; she even learned to trust again (and married one helluva hubba hubba) and look where she is now: a voice for the voiceless. The House on Sunset is as much about hope as it is about pain – she was dragged to Tartarus and clawed her way back. This book, such a simple –looking object, is really an education. Someone suffering through abuse or who’d escaped that prison can read it and see that there is a life afterwards; you can make the transition from victim to survivor. It’s also an education for those on the outside, those that don’t understand how someone can stay in a violent relationship when it seems so easy to walk away.

Seems.

Appearances can be deceiving. What seems like a simple thing, to just walk away, can be so much more and The House on Sunset does an excellent job of painting that disturbing picture. She honestly believed she could help him be a better person, even as he beat her; the human mind is such a strange place that it allowed someone to believe these things, even when logic (which doesn’t get much of a say) would scream “give up!”

Confused? Read the book and you’ll understand.

Even for someone who’d been in almost abusive relationships (I learned the signs before I even had my first date from others who’d been through it and came out the other end) I couldn’t full grasp the why would someone stay when the signs were there along? part of the equation; I mean, I knew what would eventually lead to abuse and had left before those people had the chance to turn cruel so why couldn’t others? I understood the psychology but not the emotion behind it.The House on Sunset, with its highly personal perspective, finally made it all make sense. Reading her words, it’s easy to understand why someone would not see what was ahead and why they’d stay even when their partner hurt them.

The House on Sunset is also an education in how to really help someone; reading this book gives you an understanding of what we, as a society, are doing wrong. Too many people keep quiet about abuse going on around them; they make excuses so they don’t need to speak up. Worse, there are those who actively cover up these crimes (“oh, but so-and-so is such a good person; they’d never hurt anyone”) or simply refuse to believe what they see.

See? What I just said doesn’t even compare to Lindsay Fischer’s words. So do yourself (and your sibling, your best friend, your neighbor) a favor and read The House on Sunset. It’s an education no one should go without.

5/5

​Lindsay Fischer was once a high school English teacher with dreams stretching far outside the classroom. When her boyfriend of a year-and-a-half cheated on her, Lindsay found herself alone, looking online for a replacement. His name was Mike.

That’s where the nightmare started.

The House on Sunset is a memoir, a collection of reminiscences, scattering the ashes of two broken homes and putting them to rest. Each chapter offers a different glimpse inside the cycle of intimate partner violence, where honeymoon phases and traumas coexist.

Everyone could fall victim to abusers. This book bravely displays the reasons a quirky, twenty-something teacher would, and did.

​Lindsay built and destroyed her life trying to create the next best thing.

A healer and empath to the core, she sacrificed her own safety to try to save someone else.

She’s a giver and teacher, a sassy Italian who carb loads on weekends. When her arms aren’t flailing around in conversations, she’s often lost in the writing world. But none of that matters if you don’t know why she’s here, right?

Lindsay is the survivor of an eighteen month relationship with a sociopath. After being thrown down a flight of stairs at The House on Sunset, Lindsay picked herself up off the floor and returned to her own home, carrying two trash bags of clothes and her dog, Watson, to start over. Jobless, her car was repossessed three days later. Then her house went into foreclosure proceedings. At twenty-seven, she was an unemployed, homeless victim of abuse, but she changed her story and became a survivor.

IT WASN’T EASY.

There were plenty of disgustingly painful days when she slammed her head into walls to avoid the mental pain (by creating the physical). PTSD and body dysmorphic disorder in tow, healing became her number one priority.

Three years of trauma therapy changed her life.

Now, Lindsay works to speak on behalf of the survivors of intimate partner violence who aren’t ready to speak for themselves. She wants the world to see how insidious violence is, knowing no boundaries (like society ignorantly assumes). If you’ve ever said, “I’d never stay with someone who hit me,” or any variation of that phrase, she wants to talk to you first. Because – funny (or not) – she used to say the same damn thing.